On a recent family trip to England I tasted a number of wines that warrant some discussion. On the Delta flight over (which was an absolute clusterfuck that arrived more than six hours late and included an unscheduled maintenance stop in Atlanta), they offered a choice of two red wines, each of which was virtually undrinkable. This was particularly surprising to me in that highly-respected wine pro Andrea Immer Robinson serves as their high-profile Sommelier, supposedly testing every wine in flight to ensure that they show well at every altitude.

We recently ate at San Marco, a Mario Batali restaurant at the Venetian Las Vegas. The food was good and the service wonderful but the real star was the encyclopedic wine list assembled under the direction of Joe Bastianich, Mario’s business partner and wine director of their dining empire.